Aight. Wuz up. Excuse me, but Sunjaya? Come on, Sundance sang that awesome Pearl Jam song, and Sunjaya sang... he sang... I can't remember; I couldn't get past the silky hair and goofy grin. He's like 10 years old! Bring him back when he's developed a personality! Anyway, that was not supposed to be the point of this post. The point was that my daughter has taken a page out of Randy's book. I was giving her a bath the other night and asked if she wanted some more bubbles, and she answered "Aight". Then I asked if she was ready to get out of the bath, and again I got the "Aight." Read another book? "Aight." Turn off the light and sing some songs? Aight. Go to sleep? No, not aight.
Juliette is not always as agreeable. But she is learning, in large part thanks to her dad, the fine art of negotiation. Only, she hasn't quite got it... for example, when sitting down to read her bed time stories, we first agree on how many books we will read. I go first: "One!" She replies "Four." I counter with "Two!" She replies "Four." "OK," I say,"Three." This is where I wanted to end up, and she knows it, because that is our customary number. Juliette replies... "Four."
Wait. That's not how it's supposed to work. "No, Juliette, three." She replies "No, Mommy, Four. One, two, three, four."
Hmm, maybe its not that she's bad at negotiation; maybe she is really good at negotiation. Maybe I need to take some lessons from her. Because we read four books.
We almost didn't make it through those four books, however, when halfway through the second book Juliette dug deep into her nostril and pulled out a huge green throbbing juicy booger. As I shouted in disgust "Wait, I'll get a tissue" She looked at me and... ate it.
I shudder even now when I remember it. I had to fight back the gagging for a good 5 minutes after that.
Juliette is a good teacher, though. She makes a great big sister. But sometimes she teaches Cosette things I'd rather Cosette didn't learn. It's happened several times recently that, when Cosette wants my attention, she'll call my name and I'll look over to see her with her finger up her nose. She's not doing anything up there, yet; just copying her sister. The problem is that Cosette, like all of the toddlers at her daycare, has a perpetually runny nose. So the chances are very high that when you stick a finger up there you will pull something out, intentionally or not. Cosette, however, has the good sense to ask for a tissue. She loves to eat dog food; when we feed Lucy I have to watch her or she'll grab a hand full for herself, but at least she doesn't eat her boogers. Yet.
(Juliette does not eat dog food. Yesterday she told me to put a chair in between her and Cosette because "I don't want to smell Cosette's dog food breath." Ok, booger breath. At least the dog food has some nutritional value!)
My final though before I retire for the evening and dream about big boogers is this: I need a bigger instruction manual. I was laughing the other day at a random post on someone's blog (whose blog specifically I can't recall) where they show the instruction manual for their new camera. Step 1: take the camera out of the box.
In the age of technology where you can't live without a cell phone and you can't buy a cell phone without a camera and your camera is digital and you can always have perfect pictures thanks to photoshop... the instructions I'm looking for are a little more detailed then "open the box."
For Christmas Greg gave me a cool Sony video camera. Digital, high def, lots of cool features yada yada yada. I finally figured out how to download the videos onto my computer (Step one: load fancy software, giving us our fourth photo-editing package- none of which I know how to use. Step two: plug camera in to USB port. Step three: sit back and let the wizard work). I figured out to how to view and edit the movies and how to capture stills. I have cute videos ready to show off. The problem is that I cannot figure out how to convert them into a file format that will be recognized by any other program other the the one that came with the video camera. I tried hitting the "convert video file format" button, and after waiting for the progress bar to progress to done, discovered that there was an "error."
This, my friends and family, is the reason you have not seen a picture on my blog in quite some time, and why the link to "videos" is empty. I tried it twice more, thinking that the error would magically resolve itself, and it has not. My instruction manual does not address this issue. I need a bigger instruction manual. One that gives useful instruction. And frankly? If you need to be told to take the camera out of the box? There is no hope that you will ever be able to produce a viewable video.
It was Kelli! Catching up on some of my favorite blogs after 2 weeks, I discovered that it was Kelli's instruction manual...
http://kellismusings.blogspot.com/2007/02/as-clean-as-it-gets.html
